Jennifer Martiny on how changing environments drive community dynamics in soil microbiomes

We are delighted to announce that Jennifer Martiny, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Irvine, will be our next speaker in the NCCR Microbiomes Seminar Series. Martiny’s group studies the origin and maintenance of microbial diversity, as wells as its consequences for ecosystem functioning, in habitats ranging from soils to oceans.

Martiny, who trained as an ecologist, is a leading expert in the fields of microbial biogeography and the evolution of microdiversity within bacterial populations. Her lab investigates what mechanisms control patterns of microbial community composition, and what role such patterns ultimately play in key microbial functions such as litter decomposition in the topsoil.

Director of the UC Irvine Microbiome Initiative, Jennifer Martiny also spearheaded in 2019 the launch of the Microbiome Centers Consortium, a coalition of (currently) 38 microbiome centers across the USA.

Professor Martiny is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

In her talk, ‘Capturing ecological and evolutionary responses of soil microbiomes to environmental change’, Martiny will present the results of innovative microbial soil community transplant experiments that can inform us on the effects of a changing climate. The seminar will take place on 2 March 2021, from 17h00 to 18h00 CET. You can access this public seminar through this Zoom link. Find more information on the NCCR Seminar Series here.